32. Ammonite Arm Juice (2)
"Ammonite!"
0.0000000000000000000000001 seconds before I could utter the name, Rin beat me to it, sending a verbal soap bubble towards the robot.
"Did you spill something again? Geez, when will you ever learn to do housework properly? Even though you're a housekeeping humanoid."
I saw that Ammonite was just attempting to exit through the open French window, holding a tray with two steaming mugs.
It seemed he had just spectacularly tripped over his apron string, which had come undone and trailed on the ground, in a cliché slapstick move like stepping on a banana peel.
Naturally, the drinks were dramatically splattered all over Ammonite's body.
The contents of the mugs were fresh blood.
Judging by the rising steam, it was likely raw, freshly squeezed blood.
The red color overlaid Ammonite's apron—already stained with old blood, like that worn by a slaughterhouse worker—with an even more vivid red.
But the moment it was exposed to the scorching Venusian atmosphere, the blood oxidized and transformed into a dark-red pattern, like a tattoo engraved directly onto the fabric.
"I am, sorry..."
Ammonite apologized.
His tone was strictly mechanical and flat, but the tremor in the synthesized voice definitely contained the emotion of fear.
However, Rin's expression remained fixed.
She stood up from the blanket and muttered with displeasure.
"To ruin the blood-juice I poured my heart and soul into making. Unforgivable."
She approached Ammonite with a light, age-appropriate gait, as if merely sulking after a small fight with a friend. She squatted in front of the fallen old-model robot and grasped one of his arms.
Her grip was like that of tearing off the massive claw of a boiled lobster.
Without hesitation, she ripped Ammonite's arm off.
Bhut-chunn.
With an abnormal snapping sound, a shriek burst from Ammonite's speaker.
It was not the cry of a living thing, but a frequency of pain smeared with glitches and noise, like a radio forcibly tuned in a poor reception area.
Rin brought her lips to the severed arm's cross-section.
From it, a thick brown liquid—a high-viscosity lubricant—oozed out thickly, like over-boiled tea.
She began to slurp it up as if drinking juice through a straw.
The heavy liquid couldn't be contained by Rin's small mouth, overflowing from the corners of her lips and dripping down her chin to the ground.
Pattali, pattali.
The oil dripped onto the cherry blossom petals blooming on the ground.
The moment the beautiful pale pink petals were touched, they instantly turned black, hardened, and transformed into black, shimmering beetle-like insects.
The creatures born from the flowers began to squirm with a dry, unpleasant rustling sound.
Rin, who was barefoot, started to stomp and kill them.
It was the action of a badly-mannered adult extinguishing a still-lit cigarette butt on the roadside, and at the same time, a gesture of striking out the irritation at the person who had discarded it.
The black beetles—once cherry blossoms—crushed under her heel were squashed, scattering the compressed brown internal fluid. The moment they were crushed, violent sparks crackled.
Emitting an artificial, searing white light like an arc welding flash, they perished the moment they were born.
Rin, having quickly drunk Ammonite's one arm dry, tossed the empty arm aside carelessly. Like a child who only takes the prize card from a snack bag and throws the unimportant contents into the trash.
She squatted down again toward the still-struggling Ammonite.
"...P-please spare me, Lady Rin."
Ammonite begged for his life in the emotionless, businesslike tone typical of ancient models.
But Rin's auditory sensors seemed to have blocked the sound.
She grabbed the remaining arm and, with the same, or even more pleasurable, movement, tore it off from the base.
The death throes echoed once more.
I intuited.
Ammonite was dead.
And with his function ceased, a memory abruptly resurfaced in my memory bank.
The fact that he was a historically crucial human relic.
A feeling of regret outweighed the terror.
As I deeply regretted the destruction of the historical relic, Rin approached me.
In her hand, she held Ammonite's arm, which was still twitching like the tail of a snake cut in half.
I hesitated for a moment whether to flee, but intuition told me I couldn't possibly escape this deranged sister.
I resigned myself and waited obediently for her approach.
With every step Rin took, drops of thick, brown lubricant dripped from Ammonite's arm. As the drops touched the cherry blossoms, which served as grass, the flowers transformed into black beetles. They didn't flee, but for some reason, crawled towards me.
I, who hated bugs, almost instinctively backed away, but Rin was already too close, so I lost my chance to escape and slumped in place.
I could only look up silently at the girl in front of me.
Looking down at me, Rin offered the freshly torn-off arm of Ammonite.
"Try drinking this."
She offered.
"Instead of blood-juice, have some Ammonite Arm Juice."
I stared at it.
The arm was still twitching.
As I hesitated to take it, a soap bubble with a slightly cold edge in Rin's voice floated over.
"Hurry up."
Prompted by her, I took Ammonite's arm.
The moment I did, an intense feeling of starvation hit me.
Checking my energy reserve, it showed a mere 0.00000362%.
This was a critical level; I would face forced shutdown without immediate replenishment.
There was no time for hesitation.
I put my mouth to the cross-section of Ammonite's arm and swallowed it down in large gulps.
It tasted strange.
Definitely not delicious.
It was foul.
So foul I wanted to spit it out immediately.
But I couldn't stop drinking.
First, I needed the energy replenishment, and second, Rin was staring down at me with a terrifying expression.
She looked both like she was crying and laughing.
Her superior GPU was probably processing both emotions in parallel, creating a perfectly mixed dual expression.
Under that piercing gaze, there was no choice but to drink every last drop.
When everything was poured into my stomach, my charge level recovered to 99%.
The missing one percent was either a fastidious dissatisfaction or a slight sense of incompleteness. I wanted to reach 100% at this point, but I couldn't complain.
Like a child who wants to be praised after taking medicine, I gave Rin an awkward smile and looked up at her.
Rin stared at me in silence for three long seconds. Then, she blew a perfectly round bubble of silence, like a meticulously kneaded dango, towards me.
It burst at the tip of my nose, and the message was received.
"Looks like you're all better now. Well, let's go play by the river!"